“The actual cases that had been detected in 2022, and this is just partial, we had a total of 447,696 detected or notified through our reporting system noong 2022. And as I have said, this is partial. Baka may madagdag pa ,” DOH officer in charge Maria Rosario Vergeire said during the launching of the Philippine Acceleration Action Plan for Tuberculosis.
“The COVID-19 situation limited the access to our people so in effect we are seeing that the number of tuberculosis cases has furthered increase because of this limitation because more people were not able to access services therefore were not treated and therefore were still spreading the disease day by day until they were able to again access the services and get treated,” Vergeire said.
The illness was spread from person to person through the air. When people with lung tuberculosis cough, sneeze, or spit, they propel the tuberculosis germs into the air. A person needs to inhale only a few of these germs to become infected, it added.